Novel biological conversion of hydrogen and carbon dioxide directly into biodiesel
There is increasing pressure to reduce dependence on foreign petroleum sources. As such, the development of green chemistry routes to produce fuels from renewable feedstocks has been the focus of significant research. Traditional bio-refining processes rely on microbial fermentation of renewable carbon sources such as sugar into higher value products. More recently, work has focused on the use of non-traditional feedstocks in bio-processing such as cellulosic biomass, pyrolysis of waste biomass, or gasification of organic municipal solid waste, to name a few. OPXBIO is developing a novel, engineered microorganism that directly produces a biodiesel-equivalent fuel from renewable hydrogen (H 2) and carbon dioxide (CO 2). The proposed process will fix CO 2 utilizing H 2 to generate an infrastructure-compatible, energy-dense fuel. The proposed process is scalable, the initial economics are favorable, and the liquid fuel can be used directly as a blending stock in the existing diesel infrastructure.
